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Evaluating and optimising ‘fit’ between technology and clinical work is critical to ensure the intended benefits of technology implementations are achieved. Using a mixed method approach (structured observation, interviews, field notes) we collected data regarding users, tasks, technology, and factors impeding technology use from a sample of 38 clinicians on two wards at an Australian hospital. We used the FITT framework to assess the relationships between users, tasks, and technology. Our findings showed that even when adequate fit between users, tasks, and technology was attained additional factors related to the environment (including the temporal rhythms of a ward, infection control rooms, or space limitations) ultimately affected technology use. Thus, we propose the fit between individuals, task, technology and environment (FITTE) framework as a means to evaluate and optimise technology use by explicating the relationships between users, tasks, technology, and the environment in which they operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vision of creating accessible, reliable clinical evidence by accessing the clincial experience of hundreds of millions of patients across the globe is a reality. Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) has built on learnings from the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership to turn methods research and insights into a suite of applications and exploration tools that move the field closer to the ultimate goal of generating evidence about all aspects of healthcare to serve the needs of patients, clinicians and all other decision-makers around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic Health Records (EHR) promise improvement for patient care and also offer great value for biomedical research including clinical, public health, and health services research. Unfortunately, the full potential of EHR big data research has remained largely unrealized. The purpose of this study was to identify rate limiting factors, and develop recommendations to better balance unrestricted extramural EHR access with legitimate safeguarding of EHR data in retrospective research. By exploring primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, this review identifies external constraints and provides a comparative analysis of social influencers in retrospective EHR-based research. Results indicate that EHRs have the advantage of reflecting the reality of patient care but also show a frequency of between 4.3-86% of incomplete and inaccurate data in various fields. The rapid spread of alternative analytics for health data challenges traditional interpretations of confidentiality protections. A confusing multiplicity of controls creates barriers to big data EHR research. More research on the use of EHR big data is likely to improve accuracy and validity. Information governance and research approval processes should be simplified. Comprehensive regulatory policies that do not exclusively cover health care entities, are needed. Finally, new computing safeguards are needed to address public concerns, like research access only to aggregate data and not to individually identifiable information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has experienced a rapid increase in the number of racial and ethnic minorities and immigrants. At the same time, evidence continues to mount that minorities suffer from a wide range of disparities in health and health care, including increased morbidity and mortality for many diseases, lower rates of access to care, and poorer quality of care. Policymakers, researchers, and legislators have pointed to cultural competency as a means to address some of these disparities, but this movement suffers from a series of flawed assumptions regarding the relationship between race, ethnicity, culture, and health disparities. Moreover, the current practice of cultural competency curricula in medical schools is problematic in a number of ways that may preclude more effective efforts to improve the quality of health care received by minorities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each year, millions of rescue operations occur in Germany. Despite rising numbers, there is a shortfall of systematic quality management (QM). Focusing on finding the required quality parameters, this work aims at linking heterogeneous and distributed data sources on the patient-level. Presented here is necessary IT infrastructure for linking patients’ data records properly and efficiently. The focus of the IT infrastructure is to provide a lightweight and easy applicable solution with an utmost generic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to estimate geographical patient flow to hospitals during winter seasons using simulation analysis. We used probe data collected from car navigation systems and performed a Geographical Information System (GIS)-based analysis to determine the relationship between travel time to hospitals and winter road conditions. Accessibility to hospitals based on travel time in summer and winter was overlayed on a map to demonstrate the increase in travel time during winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People-centered health care seeks an active role for the patient while empowering all other members of the health care team. By promoting greater patient responsibility and optimal usage, patient-centered health care leads to improved health outcomes, quality of life and optimal value for health care investment. This paper reviews some definitions of peoplecentered health care and various e-health approaches around the world used to implement this vision. The barriers and enablers to implementation this type of approach are explored. This paper provides a proposed research agenda for future implementations of people-centered e-health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's College Hospital (WCH) in Toronto offers specialized ambulatory surgical procedures. A feasibility study using a mobile appliciation (app) to supplement inperson follow-up care after surgery suggests that the mobile app adequately detects postoperative complications, eliminates the need for in-person follow-up care and is costeffective. This is concordant with other postoperative telemedicine studies. The purpose of this study is to determine if we can avert inperson follow-up care through the use of mobile app compared to conventional, in-person follow-up care in the first month following surgery amongst breast reconstruction patients at WCH. This will be a pragmatic, single-centre, open, controlled, 2-arm parallel-group superiority randomized trial. Mobile app follow-up care is a novel approach to managing patients postoperatively with the potential to avert in-person follow-up and generate cost-savings for the healthcare system and patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]